Chapter Three

Computer Systems

By: Sinodos G.

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Introduction

System:
 a collection of elements or components that are organized for a
common purpose.

 A set of interconnected things that works together.

 Used to model complex, difficult and dynamic things

 Examples of Systems:-
• Computer System
• Biological System
• Software Systems
• Society

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Computer Systems
 A Computer system is composed of two different components
• Hardware Components

• Software Components

HARDWARE COMPONENTS
 units that are visible/tangible or physical part of computers
 can be divided into:
• Input Devices
• Output Devices
• Processing Devices
• Storage Devices

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Cont’d …
 Peripheral Device
• links to a computer system to enhance computer functionality
• It is not the part of core computer architecture.
• Examples: Input device, output device and storage device

Input Device
• It serves a link between a user and the computer.
• It allows users to feed instructions and data to the computers for
processing, storage, display and transmission.
• Devices that are required to translate data that is in human readable
form, into a form the computer can process.
• allow direct interaction between human and machine
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Input Devices
Some Examples of Input Devices are –
Keyboard
 used to enter data into the computer in both alpha and numeric, and
input data in computer brain CPU.
 converts data into electrical signals that are machine readable by the
computer’s processor.
 There are two types of keyboard
 Special Purpose Keyboard:
• contains limited number of keys and
• they are used for specific applications.
• Example: 1. Billing Machines 2. ATM in Banks, etc.
 General Purpose Keyboard : is connected to the personal computer and
look like a typewriter keyboard to which some additional keys are added.
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Cont’d …
 Mouse: is a small, handy pointing device containing usually two
buttons:
• Primary button (Left button)
• Secondary button (Right Button) and
• Sometimes a scrolling button in the middle.
 Touchpad:. is a flat, rectangular device which the cursor is controlled with
the fingers
 Scanner: is an optical device that can input any graphical matter and display it
back.
 Microphones: are used to enter voice data.

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 Cont’d …
• Track Ball • Touch Screen
• Joy Stick • Light Pen
• Scanner
• Web Camera
• Barcode Reader
• Digitizer
• Optical Character
Recognition (OCR)
• Optical Mark
Recognition (OMR)
• Magnetic Ink Character
Recognition (MICR)
Fig: List of Input devices . . .

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Output Devices
 used to receive the results from the CPU after processing
 sed to send data from a computer to another device.

Monitors or Display devices

• Display information in the human readable form.
• Monitor a blinking object called CURSOR, helps to identify the
control.
 Types of monitors
• Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT)
• Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)
• Electro Luminescent Display (ELD)

 N.B: Monitors are also used as input devices by using LIGHT PEN,
TOUCH SCREEN, etc.
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 Cont’d …
 Printers:
• are also called as Hardcopy output devices.
• Any printed information is called the Hardcopy.
Types of Printers
• Impact Printers
• print the characters by striking them on the ribbon which is passed
on the paper.
• Examples: Dot-Matrix Printers, Line Printers, Daisy Wheel Printer,
Drum Printer, Chain Printers, etc.
• Non-Impact Printers
• characters on the paper without using ribbon.
• These printers print a complete page at a time, so they are also
called as page printers. Examples; Laser Printer, Inkjet Printer, etc.

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 Cont’d …
 Digital Projectors
• a device that connects with a computer and projects the output onto a
white screen or wall.

 Plotter:
• is also a printer that produces hard copy output.
• produce high quality color graphics output by using pens for
creating images.
• help to draw maps from stored data.

 Speakers:
• are sound producing output devices.
• They are used in multimedia systems

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Processing Devices
 Central Processing Unit
 called as the Brain of the Computer.
 The various components within the CPU are:
• Control Unit
• Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU)
• Memory Unit

 In a personal computer or microcomputer, the control unit and the

ALU together, is a small chip called the Microprocessor or the
Processor.

 This Processor and other components are housed in a main circuit

board called the Mother Board or the System Board.

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Cont’d …
 CPU is capable to execute all instructions, which can be input and
output operations or logical comparisons or numerical.
 There are list of different types of processing devices of
computer; below explain each one –
• Motherboard
• GPU
• Data bus
• Microprocessors • Expansion slots
• Sound Card • Address bus
• Video Card
• CPU
• Clock
• Chipset
• Random Access Memory

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  Control Unit
• directs the Instructions in the form of electronic signals, to the
rest of the computer that are input unit, ALU, memory and
output unit.
• defined as ‘the section of the CPU that selects, interprets
and sees to the execution of program instructions’
 Arithmetic & Logic Unit
• performs all Arithmetic and Logical operations and controls the
speed of those operations.
• defined as ‘the part of a computing system containing the
circuitry that does the adding, subtracting, multiplying,
dividing and comparing.’
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  Memory Unit
• known as the main memory or primary memory or internal
memory or Random Access Memory (RAM) of the computer.

• defined as ‘Descriptive of a device or medium that can

accept data, hold them and deliver them, on demand at a
later time.

• if power is off, information stored in memory will be destroyed.

That is why, main memories are said to be volatile.

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  Read Only Memory (ROM)
• Information once stored cannot be modified.
• Information stored in this memory can be used only for reading
purpose.
• ROM is also called as BIOS.
• The expansion of the word BIOS is BASIC INPUT OUTPUT SYSTEM.

 There are different types of ROMs

• PROM – Programmable Read Only Memory
• EPROM – Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory
• EEPROM – Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory

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Types of ROM

 Programmable read only memory – once programmed it cannot be

modified. That is, when a PROM is loaded with program then it
becomes a ROM.

 If in a PROM it is possible to write then it is called EPROM –

Erasable Programmable read only memory. But as a rule nobody
will modify, as it requires special devices to modify.

 All ROM, PROM, EPROM are called FIRMWARE - that is, Software
built into the Hardware.

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 Storage Devices
 store data or information permanently for future use is
called secondary storage devices.
 secondary storage devices are very huge in storage capacity
and economical when compared to the main memory or
RAM.
 Examples: of secondary storage devices are:
 Hard disks
 Magnetic Tapes
 CD-ROM (Compact Disk – Read Only Memory)
 Floppy Disks, Etc.

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Cont’d …
 HARD DISKS
• Non-removable disk or Rigid Disk fixed inside the computer.
• It can contain more volume of data.
• Hard disks are available in many sizes (20mb-1TB)

 FLOPPY DISKS
• also called floppies – flexible diskettes or removable disks used for
backup purpose.
• They are encased permanently in a protective envelope, which is
insulated into the disk drive.
 Advantages of these floppies
• Portable, Cheaper cost, Easy to handle

 Disadvantage of these floppies

 Small memory capacity, Not Reliable
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 Optical Disk

 use laser light to read or write data from optical disk.

 use high powered laser light to burn microscopic holes on the surface
of the disk to store data.
 Burned out part is called pit, and the non-burnt part is called land.
 Land may represent binary 0 and pit binary 1.

 There are two most common types of optical disks:

• CD (Compact Disc)
• DVD (Digital Versatile Disc)

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 Types of optical disks
 CD (Compact Disc)
 store 700MB of information.
 Data is stored only on one side of the disc.
 There are three basic types of CDs:
 CD-ROM (Compact Disc Read Only Memory) - you can’t write data
to such CDs or you can’t erase from them. Data is only
accessed/read from these CDs.
 CD-R (Compact Disc Recordable) - It is also called WORM (Write
Once and Read Many). These CDs can be written on once. But then
after, you can’t rewrite on it or erase data from it. After you first
wrote data on such discs, then only thing you can do to read data
from them.
 CD-RW (Compact Disc Read-Write) - They are also called erasable
optical discs. You can write data as many times as you want on
such CDs. You can also erase the content of such CDs.

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Cont’d …

 DVD
 stands for Digital Versatile Disc.
 It is similar to CD except that it can store large amounts of data
and it has narrow tracks than CD.
 It can store 4 -17GB of information.

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Cont’d …
 The following terms are used to denote the capacity of the memory

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 Software components

• are non-visible programs, procedures and associated

documentations
• To convert or process any raw data into meaningful information
software is required.
• is nothing but the step-by-step instructions given to the
computer in the form of programs or procedures in order to
accomplish any specified task
• Software is “Soft” because you can’t touch the instructions, the
way you touch the computer equipment – the “hard” ware.

• Firmware is software integrated into hardware.

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Cont’d …

 Software has two different types

• System Software – controls and coordinates the computer
hardware.
• Applications Software – designed to solve a specific problem.

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System Software
• called the Boss of the computer
• manages the computer’s basic operations
• allows the user to interact with the computer
• System software tells the computer how to interpret data and
instructions;
• communicate with peripheral equipment’s like mouse, keyboard,
printers etc. and
• how to use the hardware in general
 The different types of system software are
• Operating Systems
• Device Drivers
• Language Translators
• Utility Programs
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Operating System

 is system software containing a set of programs called the

supervisor that manage the basic operations of a computer.
 Flexibility of the computer usage depends on Operating System.
 Without the operating system loaded into the computer, all
hardware and other software are useless.
 When the computer is switched on the operating system is
automatically loaded into the main memory or RAM of the
computer.
 This process of loading the operating system into the RAM of the
computer is called Booting the computer.

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Cont’d …
 BASIC FUNCTIONS OF AN OS ARE
Input output management
•
• Memory management
• File management and
• Job control
Device Drivers:
 Each and every device (input or output) connected to the
computer requires relevant software, which makes the device
to communicate or interact with the CPU.

 The software that makes the devices to communicate or

interact with the CPU is called the device driver.

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Language Translators:
 Humans need to communicate with computers.
 Computers cannot understand data or information in human
readable form.
 The data or information in human readable form has to be
converted into computer understandable form.
 To communicate with computers and to instruct the computers to
accomplish any specific task, humans have developed many
computer languages.
 These computer languages are of two types
• High Level Language like Basic, FORTRAN, Pascal, C, C++, PL/1,
Java, etc.
• Low Level Language like Assembly Language

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Cont’d …

 Both these high level language and low level language require
language translators to convert the instructions in the human
understandable form into machine understandable form.

 Compilers and Interpreters

• are the language translators required to translate high level
language into machine understandable form.
• Compiler helps to convert instruction understandable by
humans into instructions understandable by computers.
• Assembler is the language translator required to translate the
assembly language into machine understandable form.

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Cont’d …
 Interpreter:
 translates just one statement of the program at a time into machine
code.
 takes very less time to analyze the source code. However, the overall
time to execute the process is much slower.

 Compiler:
 scans the entire program and translates the whole of it into
machine code at once.
 takes a lot of time to analyze the source code. However, the overall
time taken to execute the process is much faster.

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 Utility Programs

 used to support, enhance or expand existing programs in a

computer system.

 Examples of utility programs are

• Backup – to duplicate the data or information for safety.
• Data Recovery – to restore data that is physically damaged or
corrupted.
• Virus Protection – Antivirus software which will eliminate viruses
from affected files or protect files from being infected from viruses.
• Data Compression – To compress huge files and save memory
storage.

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 Application Software
 Application software can be acquired directly from a
software manufacturer.

 Basically, there are four categories of application software.

• Productivity Software:
• Home / Personal software
• Education / Reference software:
• Entertainment software

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 Cont’d …
1. Productivity Software:
 tomake the users more productive at performing general tasks.
 For example:
• word processing, spread sheets, presentation, database
managers, accounting etc.

2. Home / Personal software:

 The purpose of this software is mainly for domestic and personal
use.
For example:
• cook books, medical guide, gardening, etc.

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Cont’d …
Education / Reference software:
 The purpose of this software is mainly to learn any subject or
to refer for additional information.
 For example:
• Encyclopedia,
• Dictionaries,
• Computer Based Tutorials (CBT), etc.

4. Entertainment software: The purpose of this software is for

entertainment and time passing.
For example: games.

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Question

Next: Chapter 3

Data representation and

Numbering Systems

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